Desty strikes a chord with the royals

SHARING THOUGHTS Stephanie O’Malley chatting to Kate Middleton, who holds her gift of a Desty Teddy and Desty Feeling Cards. Pic: Julien Behal Photography


Ciara Moynihan

Westport entrepreneur Stephanie O’Malley was a guest at the Guinness Storehouse, Dublin, last Tuesday, March 3, where she was invited to meet with the UK’s Duke and Duchess of Cambridge as part of their three-day visit to Ireland.
Stephanie, an educational psychologist, is the founder of Desty, which offers an online learning programme (Desty Island) supporting children’s social and emotional wellbeing, as well as offline products, such as teddies, workbooks and feeling cards. The idea is to help children learn about themselves, their feelings and ‘how to manage BIG feelings’.
At the Dublin event, Stephanie got the opportunity to speak with both William and Kate on an individual basis, and they were very happy to take home a Desty Teddy and set of Desty Feeling Cards to their children.
The duchess mentioned that naming feelings is something she has been working on lately with her son George, and both the duke and duchess agreed that this work was very much aligned with the duchess’s work and focus on developing the early-years sector, which is something O’Malley is also very passionate about.
“It was an amazing event and a superb opportunity,” director of Desty, Noel O’Malley told The Mayo News. “Stephanie got quite a bit of time to speak with Kate in particular.”
Stephanie is becoming quite accustomed to meeting members of the UK royal family. She previously met with Meghan Markle at a garden party at the British Ambassador’s residence in July 2018.
She also got to meet Irish ‘royalty’ at the 2018 event, “One of the biggest moments was meeting Mary Robinson, it was a key moment. I told her I was working in Westport and she thought it was amazing what we are achieving while working in the west. I’m still buzzing from it,” she told The Mayo News at the time.  

Important work
The Desty founder is keen to promote her educational product in the UK, where Desty has been hugely successful in helping empower parents, carers and educators to support children to develop emotional resilience with their award-winning online Desty Island Emotional Resilience Programme.
Education Desty is helping to empower some of the most vulnerable children in the UK. The company is working with 15 local authorities there and has trained over 500 Desty Mentors to work with children presenting with a wide range of social and emotional needs with a particular focus on children in care.
Knowsley, a borough of Merseyside, has consistently been identified as England’s second-most-deprived area but also a borough where the roll-out of Desty has been an overwhelming success.
The company launched an initiative with the local authority, which has committed to ensuring that every school in their area has a Desty Mentor in place so they can support and empower some of their most vulnerable children in their care to grow their emotional resilience.  
The company has also started working with a team from the Sligo Schools Completion Programme, who are currently undergoing training to become Certified Desty Mentors so they can deliver the Desty Island Emotional Resilience Programme to schools in their area.

For more information on Desty, see EducationDesty.com.